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1/19/2010
155. If One Member Suffers….
Update: For more information on how you can help the relief efforts in Haiti, visit umc.org/haiti and www.umcorhaiti.org.
On Tuesday evening, I was giving a presentation to a gathering of clergy from the Missouri Conference when a pastor reported a major earthquake in Haiti and asked for our prayer
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1/15/2010
154. A video message from Bishop Schnase regarding the earthquake in Haiti
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1/12/2010
153. Renewing Prayer
With the start of the New Year, I reestablished various personal, spiritual, family, and professional priorities and recorded them in my journal. Some are tangible measurable goals (survive paying college costs for my sons!), some refer to daily patterns (write and exercise about an hour a day whene
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12/23/2009
152. The One Who Made Us Came To Us
Incarnation sounds like such a difficult word--ecclesiastical and weighty, academic and esoteric. The word seems far removed from the festivities of Christmas, either in their more secular and commercial expressions or in the carols and pageants of the season. Incarnation derives from the Latin, mea
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12/14/2009
151. Only if…
At our Annual Conference session in June, Rev. Emanuel Cleaver II (Assistant to the Bishop for African-American Leadership Development) provoked us to think in fresh ways about our human tendency to grumble and avoid work rather than to take responsibility and fulfill tasks. He showed us the thick r
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12/7/2009
150. The Progress Bar
Every time I download a photo, upload a file, or scan my computer for viruses, I find myself mesmerized by the progress bar. The progress bar is the horizontal meter graph that moves from 0% to 100% as the computer processes a task to completion. With a small file on a fast computer, the progress ba
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12/2/2009
149. Sabbath Business
I served as pastor of a congregation that included a significant number of civic leaders. In fact, the membership included several former mayors, a city councilman, school board members from three different districts, and various highly visible city workers. These people were frequently in the news,
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11/23/2009
148. Thanks and Praise
Two words we sometimes use interchangeably are thanks and praise. And yet there are shades of difference between them.
We express thanks when we receive something from someone—a gift, a gesture, an expression of help or support. We are beneficiaries and recipients, and thanks is an outward ex
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11/17/2009
147. The Wall
This month, the world celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. On Nov 9, 1989, the gates were opened and crowds of people from East and West Germany intermingled freely for the first time in decades. They began to pick apart the wall, stone by stone, to the utter astonish
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11/12/2009
146. Haiku
Some months ago I was present for a worship service during which the pastor opened with a lengthy list of announcements. The time given this task seemed disproportionately generous and distracting from the tone of the service. Later, as the pastor spoke to the children, he seemed to get lost in his
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11/4/2009
145. I Didn’t Recognize It at the Time
As a birder, I keep “a life list,” a chronological listing of all the species I’ve seen and identified since I first began birding with intentionality. Since starting the list in 2004, I have seen 457 different species of North American birds.
The first 100 birds I added to the li
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10/19/2009
144. Work Without Boundaries
I noticed a beautifully designed sign at the entrance to a store in the mall that said, “Work Without Boundaries!” The shop sold electronics—smart phones, personal planners, pagers, wireless devices, and an array of gadgets, communications tools, and new inventions that help custom
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10/13/2009
143. Pruning
Recently while teaching in a congregation, I recounted many of the scriptures about fruitfulness. Vines, branches, seedtime, harvest, soils, vineyards, trees, fruits—the Bible is replete with stories that lift high the notion that God expects us to use what we have received to make a positive
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10/6/2009
142. Recharge
I’ve learned to identify the power-hungry among us. I don’t mean the ambitious political self-seekers or self-serving control freaks. I’m talking about those people who meander through coffee shops, restaurants, hotel lobbies, and airport waiting areas looking under tables and behi
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9/29/2009
141. The Combination
When I arrived at the church to which I had been newly appointed, I found a stack of papers, notes and suggestions left for me by the previous pastor. He included the numbers to the combination for the old-fashioned heavy steel safe that protected the church records, checks, and petty cash. I carefu
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